Methane emission and the desorption characteristics of vertical borehole coal samples of Greenhills multiple seams in the vicinity of Elkford, British Columbia were investigated. Three vertical boreholes at depths of 335 m, 380 m and 395 m were drilled along the west wall of an active open pit mine and 44 core samples from various coal seams were obtained for desorption studies.The results are presented in three tables and illustrated with six figures. The methane content was found to...

Decelerometer testing of a rigid guide system in a mine shaft provides useful information to operating and maintenance people. High acceleration/deceleration rates can lead to high maintenance costs to both conveyances and shaft and can also present an operating risk. Possible disastrous results in the shaft have been avoided by restricting the maximum conveyance speed until the shaft and/or conveyance problems have been solved.The test instrument is a valuable aid especially during...

An alternative to building new copper smelters, because of either stringent environmental regulations or in order to expand current plant capacity, could be achieved through the retrofitting of old reverberatory furnaces by making use of tonnage oxygen. The CONTOP technology offers unique advantages over other techniques for this purpose, especially regarding substantial reduction in both, capital and operating costs. This is possible to achieve since the reverb throughput could be largely...

Surface coal mining production from Elk Valley and area in southeastern British Columbia began in 1913. Since 1970, five open-pit mines have been put into production: Westar Mining's Harmer and Greenhills Operations; Fording Coal's Fording River Operation; Byron Creek Collieries' Coal Mountain Mine and Crows Nest Resources' Line Creek Operation.In 1983 these mines produced 14.9 million tonnes of raw coal at an average strip ratio of 4.9 bank cubic metres of waste to 1.0 tonne of raw coal....